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Sunday, February 16, 2014

Gay Rights in Springfield

Note: I reprint here by request a post of mine which appeared first on "The Sounding" blog for Orthodox Christian Network in the summer of 2012.

In August 2012, the Rev. Dr. Phil Snider
made a speech in Springfield.He was
speaking to their City Council on behalf of a proposed amendment which would
add LGBT people to the list of minorities protected from discrimination, making
it illegal for businesses and landlords to discriminate against lesbian,
gay, bi-sexual, or transgendered employees, customers and tenants.It was a brilliant speech,
and all the more so since he had to cram it into the short time allowed for
such public submissions.He began by
ostensibly protesting against the gay rights amendment, drawing his arguments
from the Bible, and denouncing gay rights as unnatural and opposed to the Word
of God, and sounding like many people of the religious right who have denounced
homosexual lifestyle.At the end of his
long religious denunciation, he sprang his trap.That is, he revealed that he had in fact been
reading from a denunciation of racial civil rights from the 1950s and 1960s,
simply substituting the words “gay rights” for the words “racial
integration”.At a stroke he aligned the
controversial struggle for the legitimacy of homosexuality with the heroic
struggle of American blacks for civil rights, thereby portraying any who
opposed the gay rights amendment as exactly like the bigots who formerly
opposed racial integration.His
appeal:“stand on the right side of
history”.In other words, those who
opposed the passing of the gay rights amendment will one day soon be recognized
as unenlightened villains, and will be justly denounced when the history books
of the future are written.It was a
brilliant performance, and went viral on the internet.

What
are we Orthodox to think of the whole thing?

First
of all, I think we may take issue with his wholesale equation of the present opposition
to homosexuality with the historic opposition to racial integration.It is easy enough to do (especially if you
have a doctorate, as the Reverend Doctor Phil does), but it still represents a
kind of historical sleight-of-hand.Certainly the arguments of some white preachers of the 1950s sounded
similar to some of the present arguments of the religious right, but that
simply proves that very religious Protestant people all sound the same when
they get upset.If an American
Bible-believing Protestant gets wound up about an issue, of course he will
pound the Bible.That doesn’t prove that
the upset Protestant of the 1950s and the upset Protestant of 2012 are
referring to equivalent things, or that the issues of the 1950s and 2012 are
essentially the same.It simply proves
that it is easier to pound the Bible than to produce an argument.

The
Reverend Doctor is, in fact, trying to pre-empt and hijack the argument before
it starts, in a kind of clever ad hominem
attack.By demonstrating that those
opposing the gay rights amendment in 2012 Springfield are essentially the same
kind of bigoted Neanderthals who once opposed racial integration, he no longer
has to deal with the arguments they make.These people are clearly bigots and are not “standing on the right side
of history”, so why listen to them?Dr.
Snider has effectively discredited them before they have been allowed to make
their case and participate in the long back and forth of extended argument required
to do justice to such a contentious and complicated issue.When you think about it, for all its
effectiveness, the strategy is not really all that noble.

There
are many differences between the issues of homosexuality and race, and these
differences mean that the two issues are not truly parallel.Let us state some of the obvious.First of all, the whole issue of race and
racial integration was preceded by a long and terrible history of slavery,
wherein men, women, and children were sold like cattle simply because of their
race and the colour of their skin.It is
unnecessary to detail the suffering and injustice involved in this, for they
are well known.When the struggle for
civil rights began in earnest under people like the Reverend Martin Luther
King, those opposing racial integration reacted with considerable brutality and
violence, a violence which was often sanctioned by the highest powers of the
State, which used its formidable legal and military machinery to crush to new
civil rights movement.Police with
barking dogs, truncheons, anti-riot gear, water cannon, and other forms of
violent intimidation were used against those pushing for racial
integration.As I say, the facts of the
struggle are well known, and need not be rehearsed here in all their gory
detail.But the point is, the details
are gory enough.

We
do not find a parallel experience in the case of those working for LGBT recognition.This is not to deny genuine instances of
hostility and prejudice against gays.Especially in schools, gays can experience terrible bullying, with some
children feeling desperate enough to contemplate or even carry out
suicide.Bullying and violence are evils
that must be denounced and resisted whenever they are encountered, whether the
persons being bullied are targeted because they are gay, undersized, poor, of a
different race, or wear glasses.Violence, discrimination, and bullying are never justified.

But
the tragic suffering of those experiencing hostility and violence because of
their sexual orientation must not lead us equate things that are not equal.Terrible as abusive discrimination of gays is,
it still cannot be compared to the violent discrimination encountered by those
originally pushing for racial civil rights.Those marching in Gay Pride parades in the many cities of North America
have never encountered State-sponsored violence such as was experienced by
those marching in the civil rights marches.We do not find today the widespread, ingrained, and systemic violence
made famous by the KKK.On the contrary, we find that in many Gay
Pride parades people of power such as the Mayor, or those aspiring to power
such as politicians running for office, are eager to appear.Homosexual orientation is celebrated in many major
films (Brokeback Mountain being just
one), and many celebrities have endorsed the life-style as equally legitimate
with a more traditional sexuality.Many
politicians openly endorse such legitimation. These differences between the two movements are
profound, and mean that the current movement for gay rights cannot be justly compared
with the older civil rights movement, with all of its heroism.The mantle of such heroism must be earned by
suffering in the streets, not simply seized by a verbal and historical
sleight-of-hand in a Springfield City Council.

But
the main difference between the issues of racial integration and gay rights
lies not just with the history and progress of the two movements, but rather with
the underlying realities of race and gender.That is, gender is more basic to humanity than is race, and any attempt
make sexual differences as insignificant as racial ones is invalid.Race is, in fact, somewhat accidental to the
question of a person’s humanity, of no greater significance than eye colour, or
height, or inherited left handedness—which is why interracial marriage and
childbearing are biologically possible.It is otherwise with gender, which is basic to our nature.The main demand which the civil rights
movement made was for the legal recognition that race did not affect one’s
humanity, and therefore should not affect the civil rights based upon that
recognition of a common humanity.The
gay rights movement demands a more sweeping change—namely, the acceptance of a
view that homosexuality is every bit as legitimate as traditional sexuality,
and that therefore discrimination based upon a perceived inferiority of one to
the other should be illegal.The civil
rights movement was looking for simple justice between different races of men;
the gay rights movement looks for a alteration in how we perceive human nature
itself.

In
all this debate, the stated issue is, I suspect, not the real issue.On the surface, it would seem as if the
debate were about law, and the question of whether or not it should be legal to
refuse employment, customer service, or tenancy to people on the basis of their
sexual orientation.Put like that, I
think there is no problem with the amendment.I do not think that people should be denied these basic things simply
because they have embraced a life-style which Christians and people of many
religions over the centuries have considered to be immoral.I see no reason to deny employment or tenancy
to a sexually-active gay man any more than I would deny them to a fornicating
heterosexual man.If the amendment
before the Springfield City Council is simply about law and legal entitlement,
I have no problem with it.

But
I am not sure that it is simply about law and legal entitlement.Surely a law which prohibits discriminatory refusal
of employment, service, or tenancy to people in general is sufficient for
this?Why add an amendment that
specifically mentions gays, lesbians, bi-sexuals, and the transgendered?The LGBT community is specified, I believe,
because there is something deeper at stake.The underlying issue and the final goal is the total legitimation of
homosexual lifestyle as one that is completely morally equivalent to
traditional sexuality and marriage.The
goal is not simply to make it illegal to refuse a job or an apartment to a
woman because she is a lesbian, but rather the radical cultural redefinition of
sexual normalcy.It is not enough for a
potential employer to say to himself, “I think Suzie is abnormal in her sexual
desires and choice of partner, but I will hire her anyway as a bank teller
because what she does after she goes home is no concern of mine.”I would hope that most employers say that to
themselves already (at least they do in Canada).For the advocates of this amendment, I suspect
that the culture must be altered so that the employer will say to himself, “Of
course I will hire Suzy, because there is no real moral difference between
lesbianism and heterosexuality.”The target is not the employer’s hiring
policy, but his inner convictions.

That
is why Gay Pride parades exist—to alter the perceived definition of
normalcy.The goal of those pushing for
gay rights cannot be achieved with amendments and laws alone.The sound and fury at the Springfield City
Council is not the main arena for this struggle.The true arena is the human heart, the inner
attitudes and perceptions of the common citizen, and these are changed more
slowly, through cultural infiltration with the new images and norms.This amendment in Springfield has significance
only because of its symbolism.By
passing the amendment, the City Council symbolically declares for the new and
redefined normal.By denying it, it opts
to stay with the older and traditional view of what is normal sexuality.Whether or not the amendment is passed I
suspect will have precious little effect on actual hiring practices.But then hiring practices are not the real
issue.The real issue—and the real
reason the amendment should be resisted—is whether or not our culture should
redefine sexual normalcy according to the new canons of the gay community.

1 comment:

Let's suppose that an Orthodox priest decided to take the Church's teaching on showing compassion for the poor to muster the vote for a left-wing candidate in a time of election. And he'd do it the way some priests currently attempt the muster the vote for right-wing candidates on the basis of the Church's teachings on abortion and homosexuality. Would or not would that be inappropriate?

Fr. Lawrence on Ancient Faith:

BUY the book

Fr. L. at oca.org

Followers

Father Lawrence Farley holds an M.Div.from Wycliffe College, Toronto School of Theology, and also completed a Certificate program at St. Tikhon's Seminary.

Since 1987 he has served as the pastor of St. Herman's Orthodox Church, OCA (Archdiocese of Canada) in Langley BC. Several priests, deacons, and lay members of new missions have emerged from the membership of St. Herman's.